The Bruins didn't do much after Campbell fought Hendricks/By S. Bradley

BOSTON — It was pretty obvious tonight that the Bruins players were already thinking about Belfast and Prague despite the presence of the Washington Capitals on the TD Garden ice.

The Caps took advantage of a listless Boston club in a 4-1 win, which dropped the Bruins’ preseason record to 1-3-1.

Earlier in the day, the Bruins held their media day instead of their usual morning skate. And then they had to pack for their big trip. But head coach Claude Julien still wanted to see a better performance from his club.

“I think, again, we’re not into lame excuses. But there’s been a lot on their plates today,” said the coach. “But I’m gonna just talk about the game. I still think our effort wasn’t a very good effort tonight. And I think they realize it as well. We’re at the stage right now where we’ve really cut down to our team. I would say, basically, camp is over. Let’s start working toward putting some lines together, working with them and we’ve got about nine days or 10 days here until the real deal starts. We should use that time to make our team better and get ourselves in sync.”

After the game, all 25 healthy players, plus Marco Sturm, boarded the charter for the flight to Belfast.

I saw the first and 3rd periods last night. I really liked the look of the top two lines, in particular Bergeron’s line. Not all that pretty, but you could see the developing panic when three forwards were driving to the net. On the third goal Boston gave up, I recall a defenseman as number forty something (either hunwick or bartowski) just let the opposing forward by when he failed to pick up the puck and after the initial shot, he stood there and watched the caps shoot twice more. I suspect it was Hunwick but I am sure it was one of the two. did anyone see that and get a number?
Agree about Caron, and would love to see 1 more good d-man

I do agree what their D is suspect. They have great depth, but those players really aren’t NHL-ready yet: Alexandrov, Kampfer etc. Some D don’t even develop until their mid-late 20’s. Boychuk is still a ‘?’ entering his sophomore season; Hunwick could very well lose his job to Bartkowsi, which is worrisome.

Caron definitely looks like the real deal. He may not light it up this season, but he’s got too many tools (size, penalty-killing abilities, scoring touch etc.) to not make this team and be effective.

I know you shouldn’t put weight into the preseason but my god did some guys look awful, Andrew Ference was just wow bad like you shouldn’t look like that even in preseason. But on the other hand Tyler Seguin looked much better then Ive seen him this preseason, hes getting the speed of the game and I now see he will be scary good in time.

I wouldn’t invest too much interest or despair in a meaningless preseason loss — or their 1-3-1 preseason record thus. They boarded the chartered bus at 10:45 pm last night and won’t be back for another week.

Besides, they started a mere 3-4-1 in ’08-09 in preseason, but finished the season pretty darn well with 116 points.

I know that this is only a pre-season game but I was very disappointed by the effort last night. Bruins fans are excited by this team, just look at the turn out for the rookie games, but their interest wasn’t reciprocated by the team last night. And now the team is going to be gone for two weeks and the last impression the club leaves is that stinker. Last nights game had too much of the same look and feel as the early part of last season. Bad form if you ask me.